I just recently installed a Zalman VF700-Cu on my most recently bought X800 GTO2 card, but I kept the heatspreader installed on the back by putting some nuts on the screws to keep them on. I'm looking for an opinion on something about it. Would putting the ramsinks on the heatspreader cool the video memory even better than just the heatspreader or ramsinks alone? Has anyone here ever attempted such a thing on their card?

That's kind of what I was thinking. So you think I should do it? It would actually simplify installation of the ramsinks, since I wouldn't have to put them exactly over the memory. It might look kind of unusual, but if it works then who cares. BTW, I'm just talking about the 4 ramsinks I have remaining that would be for the memory chips on the back. The front chips don't really need anything besides the ramsinks since they get cooled by the GPU fan, making the ramsinks nice and cool.

On another one of these cards I have (which I'm going to sell), the brace plate for the Zalman VF700 got in the way of one of the places I installed the ramsinks and I ended up having to bend one of the fins to get it to fit.

After I put my card back in my system and test for the max stable overclock, I think I might try adding them on the back and then see how it affects my max overclock. On my previous X800 GTO2, changing from the heatspreader to the ramsinks seemed to have slightly decreased the max stable overclock, only by about 1 or 2 MHz, though. (using the Zalman VF700-AlCu with the ramsinks on the front and heatspreader on the back compared with using the ramsinks for all of the memory).

My max memory overclock seems to have gone up after installing the Zalman VF700-Cu (with Arctic Silver Ceramique) and the ramsinks on the front memory chips; it's now higher than my previous card. However, even though my GPU temperature is lower (not sure how much lower), my max overclock has gone down...

BTW, I did take pictures of the card before and after I replaced the cooling and also after having removed the thermal compound. If you want to see them, I can post some.

chips vary a bit.. no two will perform exactly the same.. comparing one card with another card isnt a valid test.. roughly yes but not exactly..

trog

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Oh, I was only comparing memory overclocks on the two different cards, not GPU overclocks. The max memory clock speeds were around the same on both cards, but the max GPU clock speeds were different. The one of the two cards I'm using now is clearly superior.

Anyway, what I was saying is that on the one I now use my max GPU overclock went down when I installed the Zalman VF700-Cu on it even though the temperature went down at least a little. It could just be that I tried overclocking too soon after applying the thermal compound. I tried overclocking it the first time I used it after installing the new heatsink/fan. That was yesterday; I tried it today and it actually seems to be working at least as well as it did before I installed the VF700-Cu. I haven't had it crash at all today when testing for the max stable overclock.

I used the little "sticky" 3M compound thermal adhesive ramsinks on a C3D X800 GTO - no heat spreader though, but it got me rock stable to 550 - previously it was only 440.

From what i've seen on heat spreaders, the thermal compound is thick and gooey, or almost faom-like... I imagine there is some thermal resistance there but I'm sure anyadditional thermal wicking will help.